in preparation for my move, i’ve scanned in some of the remaining physical, printed photos i’ve been hauling around for years, and have dumped them all into my extensive online photo album [4695 photos]. they’re all pretty ancient, and you can see me at my adolescent best… shiny forehead, crazy hairstyles, and an extensive wardrobe of depeche mode t-shirts and jean shorts. hott!

first we have my tour of england and scotland on a highschool trip when i was 16. sherry and i got lumped together with a bunch of yokels from texas, but they ended up being a hoot. i got drunk off of baileys in scotland, and fell in love with geraldo, the sensitive piano player from san antonio. we stayed in touch for years, until he became a priest.

the most significant cache of memoribilia is the slew of pictures from my life-defining stay in brandenburg, germany as an exchange student. these pictures bring back so many memories… my first encounter with foreign culture, my world shrinking and my head exploding as i realize that the rest of the world doesn’t operate like america, and my tiny 15yo mind feeling so incredibly naive. struggling to communicate at first, camping with the boys, weird horse festivals and nude swimming up north, visits to the extended family, my first disco, and so many laughs at home. oh—and shoveling all that coal.

i can’t really say if i was in love with my german host brother lars, or if discovering my sexuality just happened to coincide with the summer we shared a bed. there’s really no juicy gossip or innuendo here, i promise you. just two lads sharing accommodation for a pubescent summer. the photos don’t lie!

after my trip to germany, we had a different exchange student come stay with us, during my final year of highschool. his name was mike, and he was stunningly intelligent and brilliantly cute. we took him to baseball games, amusement parks and to wal*mart.

when i visited him the following summer, his posh family took me to fancy restaurants, amsterdam, and let us have a lads-only camping holiday in zaandvoort. an awakening of my global soul.

lastly, there are plenty of photos from 1998, when i got burnt out during my 3rd year at caltech, and escaped, fleeing first to paris for a few weeks, then onwards to my first residency in london, sharing a house with seven insane south africans in bethnal green. my short visit, on a student work permit was the appetizer which whet my appetite for london living.

oh, i’ve also created a few video walkthroughs of my flat in vauxhall, so that when i get nostalgic in los angeles and can dial these up and laugh. ha! look how small that washing machine is! or man, did i live in the nasty nasty ghetto! this assumes, of course, that wherever i end up in l.a. will have a huge washing machine and will be miles away from the ghetto. likely?